On a visit to Jerusalem
just before Christmas, British PM
Tony Blair expressed optimism about reviving “peace talks” but warned,
“There
is not going to be any successful negotiation or peace without an end
to terrorism."

Blair wasn’t talking about Israel ending its terrorism. And he certainly
wasn’t talking about ending the war of terror Britain
is pursuing as junior partner to the United States.

But he could have been.

That’s because getting the people who keep
taking shots at the Anglo-American occupation force in Iraq
to stop
what they’re doing, and putting an end to terror attacks on American
civilians,
means, in the very first instance, putting an end to the Anglo-American
war of
terror.

And I don’t mean the “war on terror”
cooked up after 9/11 as a label to make it seem a program of aerial
bombing,
invasion and torture is new and justified, but the war of
terror that is
the real face of the Anglo-American imperialist project whose existence
antedates 9/11.

Why are Iraqis killing US troops, and why does
al Qaeda – originally a U.S.
creation whose purpose was to oust the progressive Najibullah regime in
Afghanistan
–
continue to exist?

Is it
because the “terrorists” hate our
freedoms? Or is it because there is a regular and lawful tendency for
the
natives to be provoked by the designs of foreign powers to deprive them
of
their resources, economic assets, and lives?

Each action provokes a reaction, and the
reaction to Anglo-American imperialism is the recalcitrance of the
natives.

Indeed, it has almost invariably been true that
annexationist, plundering and predatory wars have provoked the victims
to
resort to whatever means are available – rarely pretty – to fight back.

And let there be no mistake about the nature of
the wars on Iraq, Afghanistan,
and the Palestinians. They’re annexationist, plundering and predatory,
as
thoroughly as any war advanced industrial countries have waged in the
past against
weak, Third World nations, prized for
their
resources, low wage labor and turf.

So US troops get their brains blown out and
limbs severed and minds destroyed by suicide bombers. It’s not nice,
but
neither is a decade plus of sanctions, and neither is hunger, disease,
fuel-air
bombs, and Abu Ghraib.

Aircraft plow into office buildings, killing
thousands – not pretty. But nor is U.S. backed despotism in the Middle
East, or
Israel’s rogue behavior, which carries on because Washington furnishes
Israel
with the military, economic and political means to annex Palestinian
territory,
abridge Palestinian rights, and terrorize the Middle East as the
region's U.S. proxy.

There will be no enduring peace until this
terrorism – and what sustains its -- comes to an end.

There will be no enduring peace until this
terrorism – and what sustains its -- comes to an end.

[1] “Blair,
in Mideast, Sees New Talks on
Reforms,” The
New York Times, December 23, 2004.

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